


The Doomsday Chronicles

by Paradigm_F



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternative Universe - Corypheus Wins, Drama & Romance, F/F, F/M, Gen, Grimdark, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Not Beta Read, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Multiple, Survival Horror, occasional smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-24 09:52:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 11,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13808730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paradigm_F/pseuds/Paradigm_F
Summary: “This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper." (T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land)The Inquisition was gathering momentum -- until something went terribly wrong with closing the Breach. The Inquisitor is dead -- or perhaps worse. The Veil is in tatters, the laws of magic are upended, and Corypheus stands unopposed. The survivors must band together to try to save the world -- if it can be saved at all.A "Game Over" thought experiment in trying to imagine the story if the Inquisitor failed. Sprawling, multiple POV AU that tracks what happens to the world through the eyes of both in-game and original characters. Irregular updates; flash fiction; not beta-read; excuse the mess.





	1. Solas. Breach.

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: major character death

She is breathtaking. It took him too long to allow himself the thought, but here, in the ash-strewn ruins of the ancient temple, with the energy of the catastrophic tear swirling above her, he sees in her the promise of his people restored — an apparition of amber and gold, like a precious mosaic made flesh. And even though it is his own magic that will, in only a few seconds, pulse from her fingers to repair the Breach, she is uniquely undiminished by this borrowing. Perhaps he will permit himself to voice the question that has kept him awake and away from the winds of the Fade more often than he would care to admit, even to himself. Has his magic altered her? Has her spirit responded to this intimate and prolonged proximity with his own essence?

Later. Now is not the time for indulging in questionably sentimental digressions.

“Mages!” he calls out, his voice still resonant with the ancient habit of commanding armies. “Focus past the Herald. Let her draw from you!”

They obey without question, dozens of humans and elves raising their staves as one — an uncanny union — and the magic pours towards the single small form in the center of their circle. His fingers twitch with the desire to guide the process. Instead, he joins his magic with the others, letting the mark draw what it will. The Veil vibrates with a resonant keen he can feel in his very teeth. He has observed her seal enough rifts that he is prepared for the shockwave to come, his barrier firmly in place and his feet rooted and stable. He allows himself a small smile.

Later, the bitter irony of it will choke him, but then again pride has always been his downfall. Above them, the giant rift contracts into a single, brilliant point. The blast that follows lifts him off his feet and crashes him into the rockface. Something cracks and loosens in his left shoulder, but there is no pain, only numbness and disorientation. He blinks, trying to dissipate the illusion. He wonders if the uncontrolled release of magical energy has temporarily damaged his vision. The misshapen horror above seems to have quadrupled in size, swallowing up the sky from horizon to horizon. 

He loses precious seconds to this idiotic stupefaction, seconds that could have made all the difference. He finally succeeds in tearing his uncomprehending gaze away from the sickening, swirling mass above. Comets of green flame — clothed in fire by appearance only — trail from the giant vortex towards the earth in elegant parabolas. 

He is surprised to find himself running, his body animated by a force that seems as remote from his own will as the stars. Heartsick with the useless hope that she has, miraculously, survived, and that it will be a simple matter of starting over, he reaches for the mark’s magic — a pitiful sort of groping. 

In his single-minded focus, he fails to see the demon until it is practically upon him. He summons lightning without thinking, and the wretched, misbegotten creature rumbles with laughter, unaffected and infuriatingly self-satisfied — even with the Veil torn to shreds above them, Solas’s power is nothing but a ghostly shadow of itself.

The Seeker, bloodied but still standing, draws the corrupted Pride aspect towards herself, and he exploits this brief opening to reach his target. He sees no blood, no open wounds — she is curled up on herself, as if in sleep, her long auburn hair obscuring part of her face — only the smooth curve of a cheekbone visible between the strands.

He kneels beside her in the powdery ash, the sounds of battle a distant, unimportant rumble. This can be fixed — he has repaired far worse. The absence of the mark’s magic does not alarm him: its energy has been expended, and it must collect itself, recharging over time, a process sluggish from the presence of the Veil, but not completely interrupted.

He turns her over gently, the energy required for healing pooling in his fingers without the need to reach for it on purpose. 

It takes several heartbeats for his eyes to make sense of what he sees. He wonders, distantly, whom the harsh cry belongs to.

The arm that bore the mark ends at the elbow in a bloody, shredded stump, the bone a shard of white between the singed remains of her sleeve. Beneath the ash, the ground is soaked with blood.

Her eyes, glazed with death, stare unseeing into the mangled skies.


	2. Arja. Haven.

_“From her mother Arja inherited a caustic sense of humor; large, widely spaced eyes of a mossy green that put one in mind of swamps and the flesh-eating things that dwell in them; and a long, curved dagger of silverite, with a jeweled handle that didn’t have a single jewel left in it. From her father, she received ash-gray hair; rounded ears; a talent for bullshit; and a passion for traps. Dagger aside, these were by far the better gifts. She might have even been predisposed to like the bastard that begat her on account of their purported similarity if he hadn’t simply laced up the second the begetting was over and done with, and walked straight out of the Denerim alienage and all the way back to the rest of his Chasind kinsmen in Dosov. Not that she expected a Chasind to stick around, but Lerenis did intimate that he’d been a regular before that. Sometimes, these sorts of things worked out. In the case of Arja’s mother, they didn’t._

_In any event, being born a girl mattered, because in the brothel — pardon, “the house of tasteful entertainment” where her mother had found work — a female babe was a sound investment. Lady Esther wasn’t too heartbroken about it — though calling the pestilent old toad a Lady was like calling a darkspawn horde “driven.” Come to think of it, the madam did look a bit like a darkspawn, and she certainly was driven, mostly by the clinking of coin — and, based on the bruised lips and lash marks she liked to leave in her wake, Arja supposed the nasty old bronto could technically qualify as a horde. By the time Arja started her monthly bleeding, rumor had it that old Esther’s nose was gone on account of the skin worm. The lacy black veils she wore did get more elaborate over time, so there was that._

_Lady Esther was especially fond of half-breeds. She liked to pontificate about how the “mixed child” tended to grow up inordinately pretty and just the right amount of exotic to guarantee a steady flow of clients well into middle-age. “Dumb as a nug, usually, but easy on the eyes,” Lady Esther would comment, eyeing the eleven-year-old Arja, who preferred to keep her thoughts to herself, and so didn’t speak much, but already had a growing collection of shivs, needles, and other pointy objects stashed away under the horsehair blanket on which she slept — thank you, father, for forgetting it. Needless to say, all children born into the brothel — apologies, “the palace of unimaginable delights” — were the owner’s property._

_It hadn’t been a bad life, really. Arja wasn’t the sort to moan about it, anyway. The women were impatient but kind, especially Shenny, the dwarven matron with the bright red hair who took on the Hightown clients. She had two regular meals a day, which was more than most. And she didn’t have to take on clients herself until she was well into her sixteenth year…”_

“Maker’s arse, Varric!” Arja groans. Across from her, the dwarf looks up, interrupting the process of pouring salt into his ale. Arja forces her eyes away from this awful tendency to spoil perfectly good beer — hugging her own mug closer just in case he gets any ideas — and pushes the manuscript across the table. “Varric, c’mon. This is three-quarters nugshite, and you know it. I didn’t even have to take on clients if I didn't want to. And what’s this bit about some silverite dagger? You better believe I never had anything like that. Void, I’d melt it in a heartbeat. Untempered silverite is garbage at holding an edge, and if it’s got a jeweled handle, then it’s not tempered properly.”

The dwarf shrugs, completely unrepentant. “See, Dove, that’s where you’re wrong. It’s all about the details. The dagger makes you sound more… romantic. Writing for an Orlesian market here. They like their heroines suitably traumatized by an awful childhood, yet harboring a noble and pure soul.”

Arja barks a laugh, drains the rest of her beer, and wipes the foam off with her sleeve. On the other end of the tavern, Flissa and minions are aflutter with celebratory preparations. It should be any time now — a runner is meant to come down from the mountain with the news of the boss’s success. She contemplates the plate of pickled pearl onions in front of her, and, after some deliberations — blighted things give her heartburn, but they’re tasty — pops one into her mouth, chewing thoughtfully. She has half-a-mind to go outside and watch the light show, but then she’d have to be diligent and wander down to the forge to check whether Harritt’s got the wires finished for the snares. On the upside, it’d give her an excuse to get her two silvers back from Blackwall. Bearded terror can drink, she’ll give him that — the only things she remembers from that night is that she was losing at Diamondback to Sera, of all blighted people, and that she somehow ended up in the Warden’s lap. It’s a nice lap. Roomy. Oh, and that she bought the beers. The next morning, Arja had found herself awake in her own bedroll (with a hangover to end all hangovers), all tucked in like some kind of fur-wrapped caterpillar, with her boots removed and neatly stashed by the entrance of her tent. Gentlemanly bear. He’ll make some girl very happy one day.

“Want to go see the Patching of the Great Hole?” she asks Varric, before the dwarf has a chance to sink back into his writing.

Varric considers this offer with the gravity of a marriage proposal. “No, Dove. You go.” He rubs his face, the garnet on his ring finger catching the glow of the sconce on the wall. “Believe it or not, I have a weird feeling about this. I think I’ll wait for the good news where I am within easy reach of the liquor.”

Arja shrugs and stretches, then she bounces to her feet. Two silvers will get her the wires she needs, and maybe a new whetstone if she can intimidate or cajole the slime bucket Sedgwick into giving her a discount.

Forge it is.

She hums as she walks. She makes it all the way to the practice dummies. And then the sky explodes.


	3. Blackwall, Haven.

“Blackwall” swings the axe one more time, soggy winter wood splitting beneath the worn blade with a spray of splinters. He stacks the two halves of the log on top of the steadily growing pile, and takes a swig from the flagon he tucked inside the snowbank earlier to keep its contents cool. He’d been at it all morning — chopping wood, not drinking ale (well, that too, fair is fair) — but the forge won’t heat itself. Beats sitting on his arse, staring at the swirl in the sky, and waiting for the elven lass to fix it, Maker willing. He spits out an errant wood chip, and wipes his brow. “Maker willing” — there’s a joke even the Nightingale might appreciate. Since when, exactly, has the Maker been ‘willing” when it came to making matters noticeably better, rather than, say, tossing shite into the air and seeing how it lands? 

Tits over arse, is how.

He glances at the training grounds, and stops, caught in indecision between a groan and a grin. He can smell trouble coming a mile away — or fifty yards, as the case may be. This particular brand of trouble smells like cloves, leather, and unwise decisions you can’t talk yourself into regretting. Also, comes in five foot nine of hips; legs that go on for too long, as far as his sanity is concerned; irreverent wit; and a penchant for composing limericks so inappropriate they’ve made Bull snort liquor out of his nose. How’d that one go? “There once was a man from Rivain, who kept a darkspawn on a chain…” The rest is crass enough that he feels sheepish repeating it.

The grin wins.

And maybe that’s all right. He passes a hand through his hair, trying to get the particularly sweaty strands out of his face. Well, then. Look at him preening. Maker’s balls, maybe he earned a moment to catch his breath. Maybe they all have. Why not? They’ve been doing good work. Closing rifts, helping folks. Not just slaughtering their way through the countryside over the last month, but building. Fixing fucking fences, if that’s what’s needed. Herald’s a natural — he knew it the second she cut through the sorry bastards by the lake, right beside him, no questions asked. A born leader, with the sort of charm you get on a legendary general — or a prophet. The kind of thing that makes a man rush into battle with a single name on his lips, and not give a damn when his death comes to claim him. It’s dangerous, that sort of power, but dangerous power for dangerous times, and all that. Void, she’s even got Solas wrapped around her little finger — and would you look at it, there’s another bloke far too old for longing stares and quiet sighs from the periphery. Still, takes a fool to know one, and he’s not about to point fingers. When he just arrived, “Blackwall” could barely take his eyes off the ambassador, but, praise Andraste, he remembered himself, and it passed. 

He hopes it works out for the two elves.

He watches the trapper shove a bucket on top of Cassandra’s dummy — not that the tin helmet will protect it much — before she changes course, and makes a beeline for him. Arja. He tries it for taste. He’s not the kind of bastard who’d take advantage — catching sight of his mug in the occasional reflective surface is unrewarding enough of an experience without piling on more villainies — but she seems to like him even before the rosy haze of too many ales. She’s looking right at him — he can see the smirk from where he’s standing — so he salutes her, mock military style…

It’s an old instinct, his body registering the shift before his eyes do. He doesn’t remember picking up the axe. Above them, the Breach contracts — an angry piss-green pucker of a thing, holding on for dear life before it gets collapsed into oblivion, as well it should. Still, he finds himself standing en guarde, though against what, Maker only knows. He’s not a devout man, but he mouths the words anyway, an incantation more than a prayer.

He gets as far as “there was no word for heaven or for earth, for sea or sky…” 

And then the sky seizes… And ceases. Just fucking ceases. Well, there we are, that takes care of the pesky problem. No sky — no word needed. 

He’s running. Get to Arja, better fight with someone at his back. Andraste’s ass, she’s got no armor. Neither does he. Hatchet accounted for — small mercy. He counts. Three, four — four wisps? Wraiths? Something glowing red further down the ravine — blighted rage demon. A rift? In Haven? Ten yards. He pivots, dodges the flying green ooze. Five yards. Lunges, sinks the blade into the closest wraith, the balance of the axe all wrong. He won’t last long, not without a proper weapon. 

And then, he’s next to the girl, her eyes huge and dark with the rush of battle — one they won’t win. 

“Fall back to the forge!” he yells.

They run.


	4. The Iron Bull, Haven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Bull's POV — so, language.

The Iron Bull yawns but tries to give the logistical problem currently on his hands — and other parts — due diligence. The task of maneuvering his way from under the naked redhead who is using him as a mattress and snoring quietly without waking her up is every bit as complicated as it sounds. In hindsight, maybe they decided to celebrate too early. But the chantry sister was determined, and he isn’t one to disappoint. It’s not like he’s got better places to be. 

Then again, they’re both sweaty — he keeps the tent nice and sweltering — and he’s getting itchy. He strokes the curve of her ass idly, but she doesn’t so much as stir. Bull chuckles. And then his mood sours as he catches sight of the crate in the corner.

Eventually, he wiggles free and tucks the sheepskin around his bedmate. He considers not bothering with pants — they’ll fuck again later, so why waste the effort — but the report won’t send itself, and he doesn’t like to mix. Work’s work. If you’re gonna draw lines, don’t be a dumbass about it and start bargaining with yourself over where you drew them.

He pulls on his pants; steps into his boots; buckles his harness — and only then settles in front of the crate and picks up the thin strip of parchment. The cipher’s a week old at most, and it’s still taking him too long to convert. 

This is fucking paranoia. He knows it’s right — how many mistakes can he make in a single line?

_ “It is done. Advise. Anaan esaam Qun.” _

He wrote it that morning, just as the  _ Basalit-an _ was setting out for the Breach, conscripted _bas saarebas_ in tow. He would have preferred the templars, but, again, the tiny elf defied his expectations. He was sure she would have offered an alliance, but she made the hard decision, the one that maximized allies, appeased fears, secured support and finances from skeptical quarters. As a leader should. 

His orders were clear until then. From here on, the demands of the Qun are unknown to him.

This is it. He should have a crow at the ready.

He’s on his feet before he even registers the screaming.

In five heartbeats, he’s armed and out of the tent. And then he just stands and gapes. The sky. Whatever it was that was supposed to happen, Bull is pretty sure it wasn’t fucking  _ this _ .

Ahead of him, Blackwall and Arja, Leliana’s new artificer, are hoofing it back to the forge, two shades hot on their heels. Further down, two more demons are bearing on some of Cullen’s trainees. Bull roars, blind rage over disgust — the fucking things make his skin crawl on the best of days, not that he’d ever admit it. “Chargers” he bellows. Behind him, Dalish swears colorfully. He doesn’t need to look to know Krem and Skinner are falling into formation — the three were are at a game of dice earlier.

Right. Compartmentalize. First things first. “Krem, Skinner, with me. Dalish, alert Cullen. Charge!” Bull doesn’t wait for acknowledgment — he never needs to — and rushes into the fray.


	5. Cullen, Haven chantry.

“At once, Commander.”

Cullen waits for the door to close, then he sets the quill on the desk and allows himself to rest his head in his palms — just for a minute. It’s not a bad day, all things being equal. The headache is barely there. Only a soft pulse in his temples — none of the incandescent tendrils boring their way through his skull until his eyes water. No nausea, thank the Maker. It’s still early, but he typically knows by mid-morning how harrowing the symptoms will be. On most days, he can approximate accurately how much paperwork he might get through before the pain-induced fog becomes too thick for mental labor.

By his estimation, he has two more hours. Then he will leave for the training grounds. Fresh air helps. Running recruits through drills does as well. Distractions. Over the last month, he has established a routine of sorts, and if he doesn’t deviate, then everything… well, doesn’t _work,_ exactly. It just doesn’t collapse. Things get done. Reports in the morning, drills by mid afternoon, two glasses of Antivan brandy in the evening. He manages to sleep for a few hours after that.

Maker, he is being selfish, but if there was one thing he could have done without, it is Redcliffe. One hundred and thirty seven disgruntled mages. Twenty three Tranquils, only a third with readily portable skills. Not a one trained for combat, or even remotely familiar with army discipline. All known fraternities represented, ninety three humans, forty four elves, among them three Dalish. Fifteen children, Maker help him.

Not a day goes by without a complaint crossing his desk. The quarters are crowded. The rations are insufficient. The templars are hostile. The chantry sisters are overbearing.

To make matters worse, he doesn’t understand what game the Herald is playing — but then again, he never had a mind for politics. The conscription had been a relief at first, but over the last two weeks things changed, and Cullen is no longer certain what the term implies. He wouldn’t have noticed — in no small part because the less he deals with mages, the better it is for everyone concerned —  if not for Leliana.

“She is turning them against one another, Cullen,” the spymaster had mentioned casually over a rare game of chess. “Elevating some, purposefully debasing others.”

She moved her cleric.  

“Which ones is she favoring? The elves?”

“Not quite. It is as if…” She trailed off, considered the board. “The Libertarians were always going to be a political problem, of course. But she has the Loyalists and the Aequetarians at each other’s throat. I wonder what she is seeking to gain.”

“If they are fighting with each other, they aren’t presenting a unified front.”

That had garnered him a half-shrug. “Perhaps. Unless there is another motive.”

“You do not like her, do you? Everyone else seems… enthusiastic enough.”

He had wondered then whether the enigmatic smile came with the bard training. “I do not have the luxury of likes and dislikes, Cullen. Check.”

He had lost the game. Of course.

Cullen sighs, and squints at the scribbled notes on the latest report. Yet another Redcliffe hurdle. He squashes a wave of irritation. There is no helping it. He will simply have to handle this himself.

_Conscript_ : _Yara. Elven female. 30? (apologies, due respect. Cdr Cullen, can’t tell the ages on them elves_ )

_Dalish. Clan unknown; Ferelden (by the accent, anyway)._

_Ostwick Circle_ ( _9:39? Dragon_.)

He reads on.

_9:29-9:30 Dragon, Kinloch Hold. (Likely escaped during U’s rebellion, returned to clan? Won’t talk to me.)_

Cullen pinches the bridge of his nose. She would have been what, then? In her early twenties? He does not remember an elf by that name or description, though in itself, that means little.

And then, the last line.

_Suspected of blood magic at Ostwick. Interrogated. Guilt not established._

The knock at the door feels like a physical blow. The tension in his temples blooms rapidly, spreading and encircling his forehead in a vise.

Well. He’ll have a chance to ask in person, won’t he? Lucky for him.

“Come in,” Cullen calls.

 


	6. Yara, Haven Chantry

It is a common misconception among men, no matter their nature, that those who walk _Vir Atish’an_ have chosen the path less bloody. On a better day, it might have amused Yara that this unfortunate assumption holds even among the _shemlen_ men, who know nothing of the paths, and yet still manage to hold remarkably similar views to Andruil’s proud followers among her own people. And all because to claim a life seems to universally raise their spirits — and other parts — in that ageless but futile battle. After all, what goes up must eventually come down.

But it is Sylaise, not Andruil, who teaches the way of the bitter draught and of the sweet poison — and that the two are as light is to shadow. It is Sylaise who has guided Yara’s hands over the last fifteen years to mend bone with splints and clay and clever fingers, to sew tears with magic and sinew, and to sing the soul back from the delirium of fever. It is Sylaise who has painted her arms slick to the elbows with the dark, sticky, messy business of wrenching life into this world, from elf and halla and human alike, kicking and screaming or waning and dying. Such is _Vir Atish’an_ as she knows it: the path of rusty fingernails and gritted teeth, of merciful maggots set onto a wound to clean it, of fire used to warm, and cook, and cauterize.

Or so it is said, anyway. However Yara’s particular skills came about — whether passed down from the Creators long since gone or gathered bit by bit like acorns by those who share the forest floor with other creaturely things from one generation to the next — however it all came to be, it has never, ever been _bloodless_. Or peaceful or pliant or any such rubbish.

Fifteen years is a long time. Long enough to see the pattern of it. Even when she was a young girl just embarking on the path Sylaise had laid out for her, children among her clan had been a rare and precious thing. Long ago, before her first _Arlathvhen_ , before she knew anything of the other clans, Yara had thought, along with the hearthmistress who trained her, that such was the _adahl’ensal_ , the bitter gift of the Forest — of its whispering trees, of its meandering paths, of the darkness beneath it, and of the old curse at its heart. But that was before. Before a decade of wandering. Before the _shemlen_ cages. Before her clan had come to the end of its path, guided there by one man’s foolishness — for blood begets blood, such is the way of it.

Yara squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head — a decade gone, and still every time she thinks of it — of them, and of what _he_ did to them all — something rips open again.

Well. There’s a mood for a wake. Wringing her hands over long lost things won’t solve the current matter. And, speaking of which, if there is one thing Yara could have done without, it is to sit in a confined room with yet another templar. Creators know she’s done plenty of that in the last few months.

“Am I correct that you are Dalish?”

She considers the large blond human in front of her. She knows who he is, of course — or, rather, what title and name he bears. There is something familiar about him — perhaps because she has seen dozens of his brethren during her sporadic confinements in the _shemlen_ mage prisons. She’s always managed to escape. If you’re not the squeamish sort, faking a phylactery isn’t that different from faking first blood for the nuptials. (Shemlen nobles care about such things, Yara has found, and eking out a living at the edges of their world when her own could not take her has meant that she’s taught her share of women the arts of soft subterfuge. A weapon for the meek, but such is the path she has chosen.) With the phylacteries, the techniques are different — but the principles are much the same.

She forces her face into a soft and passive mask. Even though this templar doesn’t have the vacant-eyed patina of entrenched cruelty — whatever has him twisting out of shape, it isn’t the corruption of too much power — Yara knows that defiance brings bruises, and sometimes worse.

“You are correct, Commander.” 

He discards one sheet of vellum in favor of another, and Yara watches his expression scrunch up in pained puzzlement. “You are a healer? Why aren’t you at the Breach with the rest of your colleagues?” Words sparse and dry like goat droppings, as if it ails him to speak. 

“I suppose because the Herald of Andraste had no need of my services.” Her tone is pleasant. She says nothing besides, observing. A shadow passes over his face, and Yara wonders what he knows of the woman they have elected to raise up on their banner.

Does he know? 

Does she? 

It is hard to say with such things when the past casts long shadows. Ellana Lavellan had approached her in Redcliffe, no doubt because she saw the swirl of silver over Yara’s left eye — but not the bruises under her robes. “How may of our people?” An impossible question to answer. Who are your people, da’len — even if the beautiful young woman with the autumn hair is perhaps only five years younger. Not mages, for she is Andruil’s chosen. Not women, for, by accident of birth and clan she never had to wield the soft and docile weapons. The Dalish then? 

“Three,” Yara had said, and the young huntress had nodded, satisfied. Three is nothing. An easy gamble. Three lives sold into servitude for an opportunity to show a hundred others their place. An exchange to be proud of. An exchange for those who do not see the many in the few. That, aside from Yara herself — and she harbors few illusions of her  own importance — the other one is a child of eight, with the rare gift of the dreamer. And the third is a keeper of words from a mountain clan so remote they could not send anyone to the last three Arlathvhen. Thirty years of stories untold. How does one measure such things?

But such is the path of those who forget that the only blood that pleases the Creators is one’s own.

She casts her eyes to the templar, and pity humbles her anger. “Let me help, Commander.”

He resists — but they all do. When he’s done with that nonsense, she watches the pain-fog drain from him to the rhythm of her magic.

When the elven mercenary bursts through the door, the templar jumps up as if scoured and Yara manages not to chuckle.

“Commander Rutherford? We have a problem.”


	7. Eldric Cadash; Breach

“Ancestors’ unreasonably hairy posteriors, Seeker. How long are we supposed to watch this objectionable brute parade around like it just purchased the place?”

Pentaghast turns to Eldric with a scowl that could annihilate a mountain. “And what do you suggest we do, Cadash? We are not leaving until we can secure the survivors. If you can offer a tactical alternative, then I am all ears.”

Eldric peers out from behind the giant boulder. The temple — or what remains of it — would be a dream come true for the Carta. The concept of stonesense becomes obsolete when lyrium is practically excreted from the mineral. Such unimaginable wealth… His colleagues might be somewhat discouraged by the gigantic pride demon, but it would not do to underestimate the Carta’s industriousness. There is the troublesome problem of the color, too, but such details are negligible. Find the right buyer, and the lyrium could be teal for all it would import. 

“I would strongly recommend we commence a retreat.” They are speaking in dramatic whispers, which makes Eldric feel vaguely ridiculous, but ridiculous is, under the circumstances, preferable to dead. “The other group is considerably smaller. Priority should be with the majority.”

“I am not abandoning Solas and the surviving mages. They are cut off on the other side of the crater, with no way out. Besides, there is still a chance that the Herald…”

“With all due respect, Cassandra, I must agree with our unusually articulate Dwarven friend here.” The Tevinter mage scampers closer, his expression contrite. “We are unfortunately in no position to offer much assistance from where we are, and we simply do not have the manpower to charge the demon. I am also concerned that the number of its lesser comrades is multiplying rather rapidly.”

“We cannot leave things as they are, Dorian!” Pentaghast beseeches, but, to Eldric’s ear, her tone carries the seeds of resignation. She is a hair away from making the only logical, practical decision. “Then we wait. Cullen will send reinforcements.”

Pigheaded woman. “Unless things are as dire in Haven as they are here, Seeker Pentaghast,” Eldric sniffs.

“I realize we cannot see the edges of the Breach behind the walls, but surely it could not have expanded all the way to Haven. Besides, there is a large enough garrison to handle any stray demons. If we could only send a message…”

“Then I suppose I could be persuaded to go,” Eldric volunteers immediately. “I can perfectly see the wisdom of your proposed strategy. A single dwarf would attract little attention, and I am certain I could convey the gravity of the situation to Commander Cullen.”

The formidable varghest in human form narrows her eyes at him. She looks… suspicious. “I would not recommend deserting, dwarf. If the situation is as dire as it seems, you would not make it very far.”

He nods sagely. Yes. Yes, this will do quite nicely. The road to the forward camp might prove dangerous, but he has no intention of using it. He will move through the mountain pass, a trail that would take him mostly through the woods, and the old mining passages… And then, it would be simply a matter of finding the main thoroughfare to Orlais, and staying out of sight. Eldric has been on exactly one ship in his entire seven and thirty years — though it _was_ a pirate ship — but he still considers himself a bit of an authority on the matter of the _sinking_ variety. This here Inquisition is going by way of the _Windline Marcher_. Yes yes.

Time to follow the example of the rat, this wisest of rodents. 

“I will go with him, if you can spare me, Seeker.” The Tevinter offers a most winsome smile, the tedious busybody.

Damnation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For some reason, Eldric sounds in my head like Edwin from Baldur's Gate 2.


	8. Yara. Beneath a Torn Sky.

The cry never passes her lips. Above them, the sky yawns open, a slick, swirling, sickening monstrosity that pulls and pushes at her tether to the Fade. The Fade. Yara swallows. It is there, too present, coursing in her veins and skittering along her skin like agitated ants. There is too much of it. It pulses through her like the blaze of an infection, and Yara stumbles, crashing into the templar’s armored back, the bite of steel against her face like a slap. He pivots, rights her, a hand at her elbow. The shock strips him of the past decade, and suddenly a face that only looked vaguely familiar snaps into focus. Kinloch Hold, the _shemlen_ prison to end them all. That one, she had barely managed to slip, but not before it was overrun, first with demons, then with templars. The last time she saw this face, she had thought him lost to the honeyed tongue and bloody claws of _Desire_. Another templar beyond succor, choking on the sweetness of his own forbidden cravings. Yara wasn’t inclined to feel much sympathy.

There had been another mage, a girl. A girl whose face _Desire_ had taken. A human girl, who would then wander into the Forest and lead _him_ to the decision that doomed them all.

Even now, she can barely say _his_ name. Was her clan’s demise the result of Yara’s own inaction, then? Could things have been different had she assisted this templar all those years ago?

Even now, _his_ ghost is too close, a whisper on her skin. She will not let its unutterableness terrorize her. _Zathrian._ She forces the whisper out through gritted teeth, its taste bitter on her tongue.

It hadn’t always been that way, but she isn’t about to wander down _that_ forest path, not if she can help it.

_Oh, Creators, may this world survive your implacable ironies._

“Are you all right? There is no time to waste!” the templar calls out in alarm, strain in every line of his body as if part of him is already running ahead.

“This is beyond my competency, Commander. I cannot seal rifts,” Yara retorts, and forces her eyes away from the death swirling above and to the death soaking into the training grounds below.

What has the pretty, cruel huntress wrought?

On the other side of her, Dirthamen’s mercenary draws her staff. “Never mind that for now, help me get the wounded into the gates.”

Yara hesitates for only a fraction, and then they run.

What length of time winds around the spool, only Sylaise knows. Beneath their feet, the snow is painted arterial red. She trips and skids over remains, demons and people alike, tangled. She lets her senses splay over the carnage, seeking out the telltale sparks that cling to this side. It occurs to her to wonder what death will be like with the Veil rent asunder — for this is what it is, the Fade spilling from the massive tear above them like entrails from a belly wound.

She spots the girl first, hunched in the snow over the prone shape of a bearded _shem_ , as if wishing to protect him with her own body.

“Don’t just stand there, help him!”

Yara takes off, slipping in the blood-soaked muck, unwieldy mage robes tangling around her legs. She has never hated anything as intensely as she hates the cursed _shemlen_ attire at that moment, Fen’Harel take it. It is almost too late when she drops by the fallen warrior, his guard’s green eyes liquid with panic, a hala cornered by a wolf pack. Yara takes a look, her hands prodding at the mangled flesh. Her instincts tell her that it is too late. She opens her mouth to say as much. And then her power rips through her and spills out into the dying man with a force that is almost obscene. She cries out, bites her lips against the inexorable tide of Sylaise’s gift as the healing floods into the wounded body and mends its tears. Five, ten heartbeats.

Abruptly, she slumps back, spent and vacant, every last bit of her used up. It should take hours for the pool of her magic to refill anew. Except she can already feel it replenishing.

The man beneath her hands stirs, groans. And then sits up, blood still caked in russet patches around his torso.

“Healer! Quickly, this way!” That’s the templar again, and Yara stumbles to her feet, sways, and then forces her legs to move.


	9. Sera, Varric. Haven Palisade.

“Well, shit.”

He knew it. Ever since that morning, he just had a feeling. Varric always had the “feeling” before every major cock-up that Hawke generated in her wake: cock-ups tended to cling to the Champion like a troop of hungry stray cats clings to a wobbly fishmonger’s cart. The good thing about Hawke was that, generally speaking, she actually managed to fix things. Not permanently, mind you — there would always be another catastrophe just waiting its turn right around the corner.

“No, Varric, ‘well, shite’ is when you step on a mabari turd ‘cause you’ve been stomping through Denerim during the annual mabari competition and all the nobs have their mutts running about. You don’t say ‘the world is ending, well, shite,’ do ya?”

Varric puts his eye to a crack in Haven’s paling once more. “Does it look to you like there’s more of them?” It’s been hours since the Breach ripped open, though it’s hard to tell the time of day, what with the sky no longer looking like a sky ought to. Still, he’s fairly sure the demons have been multiplying. He has never seen so many in one place. Maker’s balls, who’d have thought there were so many _types_ of the blighted things. “But what are they _doing_? They just look so… confused.”

Sera puts her back to the wooden palisade, as if not looking at the mess will somehow make it disappear. “Who gives a shite what they’re doing? It’s what _we’re_ doing. Or not doing. Tell me we’ve got a better plan thanto sit with our thumbs up our arses. What are we, waiting for them to figure out how to get in?”

Varric casts her a sympathetic glance. “Chin up, Buttercup. I’m sure this is all a freaky mishap. Her Heraldness will fix it, just you wait.” Never mind that he doesn’t believe it for a second. This needs a miracle. He’s never been good at writing miracles — they always feel cheap. Like you wrote yourself into a corner, and the only way to get out of it is to pile up unlikely solutions, one more ridiculous than the other. Then again, sometimes real life is stranger than fiction. Say, the mythical Witch of the Wilds turning into a dragon and roasting a whole horde of darkspawn so that the hero can escape. If he’d read that in a book, he would have laughed.

Except, of course, he _did_  write it. The ironies never cease.

“I knew we should’ve just gotten the friggin’ templars. This is what we get for going after the mages. You stick all that magic into the big hole thingy, what did you think was gonna happen? Bullocks is what.”

Varric opens his mouth to argue, and then closes it on a noncommittal “humpf.” Truth be told, he’d been uneasy about the mages too. Not on principle — getting them from under the addled magister seemed like a good move. But conscripting them? And it wasn’t just that. The Herald had been playing them against each other. Deliberately putting all the Loyalists into summer tents, as far away from the latrinesas possible when Haven doesn’t get much above freezing even at noonday? And halving their rations? What was that about? Sure, the Herald seemed particularly fond of antagonizing the Iron Lady, but this seemed a little extreme. Even Chuckles had tried to step in, but her Heraldship just batted her eyelashes, added some extra sway to her hips… and kept on course. There must have been a conversation behind closed doors, which Varric hadn’t been privy to. Why hadn’t Ruffles tried to mitigate?

“You and the Herald got off on the wrong foot, didn’t you?” Varric asks to pass the time. Until he hears otherwise from Curly, their task is to simply sit back and observe, discouraging whatever comes too close to the gates. Eventually the Seeker will send news, and then they can decide what to do.

“Ugh,” Sera growls, but doesn’t elaborate.

A cluster of shades wander closer and Varric decides he doesn’t like the look of them — not that any of the demons he’d seen are particularly winsome in the looks department — but these three have a sort of purposefulness about them. Sera peers through the crack, and nocks an arrow. They exchange a brief nod, and Varric loads a grenade.

“On three, yeah?”

“Hmmm. Take the straggler on the left, it’s out of radius for me.”

“Out of radishes. Got it.”

Varric rolls his eyes. “I know you know what _radius_ means, Buttercup, why do you insist on pretending you don’t?”

“Cuz taking the piss out of your fancy-pants talk is fun?”

They get to their feet and fire at the same time. Varric is sorely tempted to stick his fingers into his ears to drown out the screeching. The shades disintegrate into oily ash, the smell on the wind reminding him of the stench of Lowtown on a particularly muggy summer day.

“So, anyway, the Herald and you. Is it a Dalish thing?”

Sera sits back, bow on her lap. “It’s a hoity-toity I’m-better-than-you arsehole thing.” At Varric’s raised eyebrow, Sera pinches her nose and continues in a high-pitched nasal timbre. “Sera, I have noticed that you overdraw your bow when you fire from more than fifty yards. You do realize you are wasting valuable energy? I also recommend you work on your posture — you have a slouch that will put strain on your shoulder joints in the long run. Blah blah blah, well the _ha’ren_ of _my_ clan say… blah blah blah.” Sera jams the arrow into the boards beneath their feet. “Ugh.”

Varric sighs. The Herald has been… divisive.

He takes one more look at the field below, squints, and then grins. “Well, well! If it isn’t Sparkler with Fancy in tow. Better cover them.”


	10. Solas; Breach.

Night falls, a subtle shift in illumination at the fringes of the horizon. It used to be that gazing into the starlit sky provided comfort — the constellations his only constant in a world he hardly recognized. Familiar pinpricks in the velvet darkness, patterned into glyphs he could trace with his gaze. A sorrowful consolation. The world had moved on, but the skies endured.

The stars are no more.

Solas shifts, trying to accommodate his damaged shoulder. He leans his back against the rock. In the meager shelter of the cliff’s overhang, the surviving mages sleep, huddled together for warmth, helpless like a litter of newborn kittens. Below them, obscured from view by a rocky outcrop, maddened spirits swarm senselessly inside the crater left by the explosion. Their delirium brushes against his senses, insistent in its abrasiveness. 

He reaches, once more, for his magic, but nothing about this configuration, this misbegotten splicing of Waking and Dreaming feels familiar. A year before, after he woke, he taught himself to cast again, fumbling for the Fade’s now achingly alien currents, the experience akin to wandering around with a sack on his head and wool in his ears. A weak and frail invalid, learning to walk again. The acute experience of his own ineffectiveness — and thus of his own mortality — had supplied the anger needed to override his despair. 

He had caused this.

“You caused this too, you know.” 

His head snaps up towards the source of the voice, but the space is empty. He blinks, forces himself to refocus his eyes. His perception adjusts, the air condensing into a shape.

He draws a sharp breath before he has a chance to catch himself. It is only a shell, a mask — a skin the Fearling borrows to burrow beneath his target’s skin — but the likeness stuns him into speechlessness. 

The demon wearing the face of another laughs a familiar laugh. “Well, that’s not a look to make a girl feel good about herself, is it?”

“You are not her. Let us not play games.”

It smiles its dimply smile. He used to secretly delight in causing its appearance.

“Fine, fine. I technically did it. But you could have stopped me. I trusted your advice above all others, you know. You knew that alienating the mages was risky.”

Solas closes his eyes. “Why did you choose to do so, then?” He is perfectly well aware that engaging with the Fear aspect in conversation is a terrible idea, but he cannot quite help himself. There is little else to do regardless. 

It doesn’t respond for some time. “Because I could,” it finally says, horrific in its casualness. A child delighting in dismembering an insect.

Solas’s eyes fly open. “You are not her. There is nothing for you here. Leave, rejoin your kindred.”

“Are you so sure? Have you considered that with the Veil in tatters, death is no longer what it used to be?” It surveys him between long lashes. “I’m sure we’ll speak again,” it offers. And then, to Solas’s relief, dissolves.


	11. Arja; Infirmary

Arja whistles between her teeth — an annoying earworm of a melody, sweet and repetitive. She doesn’t remember where she picked it up, but it doesn’t much matter since it gets the job done. Allows her mind to occupy itself with something while she lets her eyes and hands work. She surveys the room, letting her gaze drift a bit out of focus.

The infirmary is maybe twenty paces wide and thirty paces deep, with cots arranged along the back wall. Way more crowded than it should be, but she ignores the stench and the moaning. She’s got a job to do. Two exits, one in front, and one on the side — the servants’ door. Three windows. One is too high to reach without standing on something. She has the perfect thing for that one. The simpler the trap, the better. Mix a bit of tar with broken glass, and coat the surfaces. She can almost see where the handholds would be, her own hands itching in anticipation of where she’d place them.

 _What makes a good trapper, mi amor_ , she hears the Antivan say in her head, _is not the mechanism. It’s the ability to become the prey._

They’ve had their fun, didn’t they, even though she knew it wouldn’t last. She hopes he’s alive, somewhere.

The front door isn’t going to be her problem, it’s already sporting one of those fancy glyphs the Rivaini mage concocted. It’s pretty in a fussy sort of way, like the Rivaini herself. Hard to do on uneven surfaces, though, which is where Arja comes in.

The other two windows are low to the ground, so they are now crisscrossed with thin catgut strings she sweetalked the bard into contributing to the cause. She rigged the explosives to direct the blast outward. Come a little closer, you twisted bastards, and bring your friends with you, the more the merrier.

Arja grins.

“Artificer, report.”

Arja schools her features into a semblance of respectful deference. She wasn’t born yesterday. The spymaster is, herself, a walking, talking trap.

“It’ll give ya an extra ten minutes, fifteen if they’re stupid.” She squints. “Are we expecting an attack, spymaster? Large scale, I mean.”

The Orlesian bard offers her one of those smiles. You know the one.

“It is best to be prepared for different eventualities, no?”

Arja just nods. Like they were prepared for the eventuality of the Herald blowing herself up? The Vint put it more delicately, naturally, but Arja’s the type to call a spade a shovel. She says nothing, of course, and waits for the spymaster to dismiss her. Once the dismissal comes, she drifts to the back of the room, nonchalant-like.

“You’re holding up, Warden Blackwall? I’d hate to lose my two silvers.”

She doesn’t like the look of him. Well, that’s not right either, she quite likes the look of him, if she’s being honest, but not the ash-pale bit. Guilty as charged, she should have worn her armor, and what in the Void was she doing without her throwing knives? If she hadn’t let her guard down with all that festive shite...

He lifts up on his elbow, and chuckles, the skin around his eyes creasing with a smile. “Oh, you’re just in it for the money, are you? Should’ve known. And here I thought it was the beard.”

Arja plants herself next to him on the cot and gives him a critical once-over. The chest-wound’s shallow, but the one in the Warden’s right arm went right down to the bone. That elven mage patched him up all right — there’s not even a scar — but he still leaked bucketfuls of blood before she got to him, and it shows. “Keep the silvers, I’ll take the beard. I know this dwarven wig maker in Denerim, has a good business selling fake beards to Ferelden lords. Yours would be all the rage.”

He barks a laugh. “How about this. I’ll bequeath it to you — and all the power held within.” He looks up at her, and there’s something a little wicked about the glint in his eyes. “What will my Lady trade me for it?”

She isn’t exactly a blushing damsel, so Arja writes off the sudden heat in her cheeks as the effect of the infirmary being hot as a blighted broodmother’s arse.

“Depends. How intent are you on dying? See, girls back at the Pearl had this tradition… ‘Course, I didn’t grow up at the Pearl, way too classy for the likes of me, but I always thought we should take it up. If they knew their client was crow bait…” She looks around a bit furtively. There’s a chantry sister replacing the bandage on the sorry sod in the next cot over, and she’s giving Arja one of those looks that are meant to make you itch with the sudden realization of your own vileness. So she leans in, and whispers the rest into the Warden’s ear.

Once she gets to the final bit, the poor fella does this choked little sound at the back of his throat — Arja decides she rather likes that too — and pretends to cough over it, not too convincingly, mind.

“Maker’s Breath, lass,” he manages, somewhere between a laugh and a rasp. “Puts a bloke in mind of asking Death for an advance.”  
Arja grins at him, pleased with herself at having gotten a chortle — and some color to return to his cheeks.

“How about this. I’ll trade you an epitaph. One of those limericks of yours.”

Arja pretends to think. “Lets see… What rhymes with Blackwall…”

“What doesn’t rhyme with ‘Blackwall’?”

They never get a chance to finish. The Templar — or ex-Templar, Arja’s not all that clear on the details — marches in, the Orlesian mage and some more of the Inquisition’s top brass on his heels.

They make a beeline for Blackwall’s cot. “Warden Blackwall. Artificer.” His attention focuses on the Warden. “Blackwall, I am loathe to deploy you this early, but the situation is… problematic. Can you fight?”

The Warden rises to a sitting position with only the trace of a flinch. “Yes, Commander. You have my steel.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my head, Arja is whistling the tune from Kill Bill.


	12. Eldric Cadash; Haven

He should have run. There had been perfectly valid opportunities, tedious Tevinter fop notwithstanding. But Eldric found himself beset by debilitating hesitation each time a window presented itself, and, stuck once more in the ancestors forsaken village, he is as trapped as a rat in a cage. 

A very irascible rat, all the more so now that he has been strong-armed by the Great Redheaded Malediction Herself (he is still considering a more scathing moniker) into the inglorious toil of playing nanny. Who could have guessed that Haven came equipped with an entire retinue of snot-nosed little shits of the human and elven variety, all lanky and scurrying around like so many deepstalkers — and with as much carnivorous intent, as far as he is concerned.

“Messere dwarf, pleeeaase, can we have another one?”

Eldric crosses his arms over his chest. This. This is what he has been reduced to. Telling feebleminded fables to a brood of insufferable little scamps who demand entertainment as if he, Eldric, were not the most promising member of the fearsome House Cadash, but some two-copper minstrel down on his luck in a Ferelden backwater. Curses upon the Tevinter mage and all of his ancestors. This could have been avoided if the intolerable coxcomb had just held his tongue, but, eager to ingratiate himself with the Inquisition’s string-pullers, the thrice-bedamned northerner made a thinly veiled allegation regarding, shall we say, Eldric’s prospective loyalties. A remark overheard by Malediction Herself.

Eldric's associates would die of laughter if they could see him.

“Very well, you mucous-riddled runts, what shall Eldric regale you with this time?”

Surely, this horror will end. He should, at a minimum, be planning the defense of this indefensible pisshole, thankless task that it is.

“Can we have Fried Mush and Nug again?” the chorus squeaks in return. Eldric could howl.

“I would like to alert you that this is the third time you have requested it. Surely, even such disreputable scalawags as you should be capable of harboring more diverse tastes,” he sniffs.

“Fried Mush and Nug,” they wail.

Oh, ancestors, what has he done to merit this torment? 

Eldric sniffs again. Fine. This should be only mildly more taxing than negotiating with the Coterie. “I would like to extend a counter-offer. We are going to play a game.” An enthusiastic outcry. Good. “It is called, ‘discovering hidden escape routes in the advent of terrible peril.’”

He is met with blank stares.

“Better known as ‘how to cheat at hide and go seek.’ Now. Which of you ruffians is with me?”

They all are. Most excellent. Eldric has always been of the opinion that idleness in children leads to intellectual degradation. The least he can do is assist the Inquisition with elevating its wards’ resourcefulness and moral fiber. And if they aid him in discovering a way out of the cage in the process, all the better. Yes. Yes, this will do quite nicely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I fully intent on finishing every Eldric chapter with "yes, yes, this will do quite nicely" or equivalent.


	13. Yara, Temple of Sacred Ashes

Above them, the sky bulges with its own depletion, nothing to hold it back but a ragged skin, bloodthin and threadbare and lacerated beyond ken. Yara avoids lifting her gaze to it, but staring only at her feet means losing sight of whatever lurks in the churning shadows of the canyon. She settles for a compromise. The broad back of the Qunari directly in front of her — gray and corded and overwritten with old gashes and gauges — is solid enough to anchor her eyes.

Their ragtag band gains ground slowly, like water eroding stone. What should have been a half-day stretches and snags on every turn in the stony path, and she loses track of how many misbegotten creatures the Breach births into the Waking — Fear, and Despair, and worse, things never seen nor heard in stories told by her clan’s hahren, or by any others. Perhaps Zathrian, with his stolen lifetimes’ worth of knowledge — Fen’Harel crack his rotting bones —would have known what demons’ misshapen flesh her companions rend with their ichor-stained weapons.

She loses track of how much blood the warriors leak into the mud-streaked snow, and how much magic she pours into the holes in their skin. There is no seeming end to it. Down and down it goes, like a well dug all the way through to whatever hides beneath it all. Power rushes into the world through Yara’s hands as if her body were nothing but molted skin, some old, discarded, larval form.

She’d give it back, every last cursed drop of it, but no one comes to claim the lavish horror laid upon them. 

“You alright there, Streaks? Holding your lunch?”

She nods. “I do wish you had not reminded me of it.”

The Qunari grins, then he suddenly lunges to the side, blade drawn and dark with the residue of killings past. A blood-curdling shriek ricochets from the walls of the tunnel. At her back, a templar whose name she has forgotten shoves her in front of him like a living shield — a casual gesture lacking ill intent, bearing only the certainty of his life’s relatively greater importance. Ice shards sink into Yara’s barrier — she weaves hers soft and loose like a netbag sling, and they absorb and tangle more than resist and shatter.

Her staff blade — simple, unadorned steel — sinks on an upswing into the viscous cobwebs that make up the demon’s flesh. The Qunari delivers the death blow.

“Can hold your own. That's good.” He squints at the templar behind her. “How about you walk with Krem from here, Streaks. Bet he could use some help, am I right?”

“As always, chief.”

Out of the templar’s grabbing range, but within the perimeter of a potential smite. Whether this new magic can be bridled the usual way, Yara is doubtful. She wishes the mercenary who calls herself Dalish — and who denies being a mage as some kind of jest with her comrades — had been there. It would have been good to speak openly about the changes.

The crater left where the shemlen temple once stood is teeming and roiling with Fade things, a concentrated nightmare. Their patrol hugs the jagged rocks to avoid being noticed. The large bearded shem who should have died but did not takes a knee next to the Qunari, and squints into the faintly glowing writhing mass below. Around them the others settle to wait. Some of the Qunari’s mercenaries eye the Templar Commander’s recruits with open skepticism.

“Bloody Void, they’re on opposite sides.”

“Yep.” The Qunari nods. “So we split up. Me and the Chargers we get the Seeker and you and the rest get the mages.”

“Don't much like our odds. I'd hoped Dorian had a taste for exaggeration, not understatements. This is more than two dozen of the blighted things.”

Yara watches the Qunari swallow back the sudden flood of visceral, instinctive revulsion.

“Guess they keep coming through. So let's move our asses. Get the Inquisition’s people, get out of range, let Cullen do his thing. Rocky — you got the signal ready?”

“As ready as it'll be,” the dwarf growls. “Hope Rutherford has good aim.”


	14. Solas, Temple of Sacred Ashes

The day — or what now passes for it — meets him with no waking nightmares of the Herald. A small mercy, but one quickly replaced by other concerns. His eyes blur with an eerie, throbbing pain, deeper and more primordial to what he is than the crushing lethargy of dehydration. The utterly abject state in which he finds himself should alarm him — he knows this to be pathological, but cannot focus long enough to understand the cause or nature of the symptoms. Besides, the lack of water is likely to put an end to his difficulties, and soon. Their canteens have long since grown depleted — this was meant to be a short journey, after all. A mere formality.

“I am glad to see such a precise barrier.” The one who calls herself Fiona — still the leader of the handful of surviving mages — joins him by the boulder he uses as cover to observe the activities below.

Solas forces himself to don a neutral mask. Her Orlesian accent has lost none of its jarring edge — another reminder that this world that crumbles around him is as far from his own as the stars themselves. And yet, were it not his actions that lead to this precise outcome? Still, the chuckle escapes him, unbidden.

“Did I say something amusing, Solas?”

“Under different circumstances, I would have suspected a compliment about an adult mage’s barrier spell to be the sort of refined insult Orlais is so well-known for.”

“I wish the circumstances were such that we could afford to simply trade barbs.” There is no bite to her tone — nothing but resigned lassitude. “I am afraid few of us are still capable of entirely predictable casting.”

“How many remain in full control?” Is there a pattern to discern? Some common ground that might account for which of the mages are most severely affected by the Veil's catastrophic state?

When Fiona does not respond, Solas casts his eyes towards the Orlesian mage. He has a brief, vertiginous memory — the Herald, a wine glass in her hand, paces the length of his cabin, cold rage hardening her features — an expression she wears more and more often since Redcliffe. _“First, he stole them right from under our noses. And then he used them to grow red lyrium._ ” She had turned to him and snarled, the wine staining her teeth burgundy. _“Like… fucking flower pots._ ”

“Fewer than there were yesterday,” the former Grand Enchanter responds. “Are you not affected?”

Solas lets his gaze drift to the sky. How to describe the wrongness of what has become of the Veil — the sheer horror of what pulses above them — without revealing entirely too much about its constitution? And would such revelations matter now? It is unlikely that any of them will survive for longer than a day or two.

“The Veil is in tatters. I doubt that anyone could claim immunity.”

He notices them first — dark figures creeping quietly along the torn perimeter of the ruined temple, partially sheltered by the jutting rocks and jagged shards of lyrium. He recognizes Blackwall.

He draws a quiet breath.  And thus, Haven still stands — in some capacity, at least.

“Do you or any of your colleagues have a facility with illusion magic?”


	15. Blackwall; Temple of Sacred Ashes

Something flickers at the periphery of his vision, and Blackwall turns his head towards the crater, lifting his shield on instinct. It's till teeming with demons, too many to count — and way too many to take on. Two pride demons now — he missed when the second one came through. Sure enough, they're ambling about, practically colliding with each other. There's no purpose to them — occasionally, the larger ones snap at the smaller ones, and the crater explodes in ear-splitting shrieks, the sound making his skin crawl. Whatever these things are, they are fucking  _wrong_. Well. More wrong than usual. Even the demons he'd cut down while following the Herald around had more sense than whatever these bastards seem to be doing.

 _Focus, you fool._ They're not there to tangle with whatever the Fade vomits at them — get the mages, and get out. Blackwall has been in his share of hopeless battles — and he's gotten away, too, solely because the Maker, or the gods, or whoever's in charge of this blighted mess have a nasty sense of humor. Maybe this is no different. Another twisted joke the old bastard was just saving up for a good occasion.

He surveys his small contingent while they take a breather, mid-way to the group of mages huddled up in their meager shelter some thirty yards away. He shields his eyes against the green glare, trying to take the measure of whoever's left to rescue. Hard to believe that this is all that's left of them — he can count a dozen, at most. When the Herald brought them back from Redcliffe, there'd been over a hundred.

They had this. It never even occurred to him that something might go wrong with closing the final rift — he'd watched the elven lass close dozens. Always with that smirk afterwards, never mind the pain the green thing latched to her hand caused her. "Another day another demon, heh, Warden?" She'd flirted a bit, too — early on, anyway, before Solas caught her eye. Blackwall didn't take it personally — neither the flirting, nor the waning interest.

What in the Maker's bloody balls had she done to cause this?

"What's our next move, Warden?" Harding is crouched at his side, her bow trained at the ground. "It's open terrain from here to the mages. We can't very well charge. Not without drawing attention, anyway."

Blackwall nods, thinking. She's right. They need a distraction. With any luck, Bull's group will provide it without getting themselves slaughtered, but he's not exactly in the mood to rely on luck, all things being equal.

"Look!" The Dalish healer — the one who pulled him back, somehow, even though he knew in his bones the wounds weren't survivable — points her chin in the direction of the knot of mages. One of them stands — no one he recognizes, a young human lad, probably too young to grow a proper beard. What in the blighted Void is he doing? 

The mageling waves his staff — with about as much grace as a peasant swinging a hoe — and then he plants it into the ground. The air ripples — like the watery shimmer of noon at the hight of summer — and then it thickens below into the shape of twelve mages huddled together, smack in the middle of a ring of demons. The creatures screech — and then pounce, colliding with each other, too stupid or too disoriented to realize they're mauling nothing but empty air and each other.

"Quickly! Cover them — long range! Lysette, Vale, with me." Blackwall is on his feet and running down the narrow ledge, the two others at his heels. He hasn't the slightest idea how long the illusion will hold, and he's not about to wait and find out.

It's a bloody mess from there. They get to the mages, all right, but the lot of them are sluggish and disoriented from lack of water, and from whatever the torn skies are doing to their magic. Blackwall dispenses with the niceties. He hoists the mageling that cast the illusion trick onto his shoulder — by the time they reach them, the lad is unresponsive, and the bastards below are screeching with renewed bloodlust, now that their supposed target's been snatched from under their claws.

"We must run now!" Solas. So the elf's alive, at least, and taking charge of the remaining mage folk. Good enough for now.

His shield is hit with a blast of ice, but Blackwall doesn't slow down, only adjusts his hold on his burden — the mageling is heavier than he looks — and forces his legs to move faster. Behind him, the zing of barriers being cast.

Make it to the overhang — then regroup.

He allows himself a quick look at the other side of the crater. Bull's people have reached their target, and it's not so bad — defensible if they don't stall. And the way is open for a retreat. Now he only has to worry about his own charges. But that's not what has "Blackwall" grinning, the sort of vicious grin his old self would have sported in the heat of battle.

The flare arcs into the sky over the crater, blood red against the greenish backdrop, a trail of white smoke in its wake.

Only minutes to find shelter before Rutherford spots the signal and acts on the plan. Here is to hoping the trebuchets will reach.

He scans the surroundings, his mind blank, focused to a single, blinding point. There. An opening in the wall, the crumbling staircase that leads back into the ice tunnel. Twenty feet.

"Run! Find cover!" Blackwall bellows and motions towards the opening.

Somehow, their luck holds. They make it through the mouth of the tunnel, the ice walls shielding them from the horror at their back.

A low roar overhead. And then, behind them, what's left of the old temple explodes in flames.


End file.
